Effective change to the way we teach reading won’t be cheap

As sure as day follows night, Education Minister George Abbott’s letter to teachers announcing “A New Focus on Reading” will reignite the age-old and still unresolved debate about how best to teach reading.

The education ministry website which invites teachers to “join the conversation” has already logged hundreds of responses, some advocating a traditional phonics-based approach and others supporting literature-based “whole language” methods.

The goal of phonics is to enable beginning readers to decode new written words by sounding them out, or in phonics terms, blending the sound-spelling patterns.

The “whole language” approach emphasizes identifying words and deriving meaning from context. In the minds of some teachers this approach could not be reconciled with the phonics system.

But the most successful reading teachers know that it is not an either/or issue and that different kids learn in different ways.

Here’s what we know for sure, though: To the extent that strong reading skills can be considered predictive of a better-skilled citizenry and workforce, countries and jurisdictions with a large proportion of students attaining high reading levels will have an important social and economic advantage.

On the other hand, those young people with poor, or low-level, literacy skills may find it difficult to benefit from further educational opportunities and may be limited in their ability to contribute and participate in societies dependent on information and knowledge.

So B.C.’s newly appointed superintendent of reading, the highly regarded and energetic Maureen Dockendorf, has her work cut out for her both educationally and politically as the point guard for the minister’s “New Focus on Reading.”

To lead this latest effort, Dockendorf will draw on research and an understanding of what builds reading success in kindergarten to Grade 3.

She also plans a review of various literacy programs around the province to determine why some schools have had exceptional success in teaching their students to read while others have not.

“In many communities across the province we can see outstanding examples of early reading success,” said Dockendorf recently, “but despite our best efforts to date, the 2012 Foundational Skills Assessment [FSA] data tells us that provincially only 70 per cent of Grade 4 students and 64 per cent of Grade 7 students are meeting or exceeding B.C.’s expectations in reading.”

That’s not good enough and Dockendorf, no doubt, recognizes that a major aspect of her job will be to identify where there is, as always, room for incremental improvement in the teaching of reading, not just kindergarten to Grade 3 but at all levels and how to bypass the usual obstacles to changing current practices.

“Where success has happened, it has invariably been the result of a deliberate and relentless focus on reading success, which is precisely what we hope to instil across the province this year” she said in a recent CBC interview.

Dockendorf’s approach is supported by the findings of virtually every review of successful reading programs and a growing body of evidence to the effect that what matters for student achievement are approaches that fundamentally change what teachers and students do every day in prioritizing the teaching of reading from kindergarten through Grade 12.

Instructional reviews, national and international, are unanimous in agreeing that programs designed to transform daily teaching practices require extensive professional development in specific classroom strategies and have greater effect than programs focusing on curriculum or technology alone.

None of this will come cheap, which raises the issue of whether and to what lengths Abbott is prepared to go in pursuit of adequate funding to support his initiative.

In less than a week, Abbotsford recording artists Hedley went from touring Canada with two supporting acts and a popular new album to pariahs ensnared in allegations of sexual misconduct. On Monday, accusations that band members Jacob Hoggard, Dave Rosin, Tommy Mac and Jay Benison had engaged in sexual behaviour with teenage girls surfaced on Twitter […]

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